On celebrating Chinese New Year with a Chinese family

This article was written by Marta Lovisolo, who studies in an high-school at Nanjing since September 2012. She lives with a Chinese family so, when she refers to her dad, mom, sister and so on she’s actually referring to the family that is hosting her.

Click here to read my interview to Marta, an insider point of view on the life of Chinese high-school students.

But I stop here. Let’s Marta do the talk!

Getting to the village

Celebrating Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, with a Chinese family is much more than spending new year eve together.

My Spring Festival started on the train that was supposed to bring me to my hosting family. I received a text message that said to get off the train in Lingshi instead of Yuci.

So at five a.m. I arrived at this tiny station. The first thing I noticed was that, even if our train was huge, only other three people got off with me. Moreover, the platform was covered by the snow. I was discovering the “peaceful” side of China, a side that till now I’d seriously thought that didn’t exist.

At the station I met the first of an infinite series of shushu (叔叔, literally it means “uncle,” but it’s a term quite general that may refer to any male older than you), who brought me to his house.

My father’s home

When we arrived home there were so many shushu and ayì (阿姨, aunt) that I got an headache!

I was introduced to everyone and then we all got on the cars and climbed a mountain in the middle of nowhere, heading to the native land of my baba (爸爸, dad).
When we got there, I had the impression that we were landed on Middle Age, if it wasn’t for a big parking at the end of the street.

A poor land, a land that doesn’t know globalization where a white devil like me caused a big mess.

We had dinner outside because there wasn’t any place that could host all the people of the village at the same time. It was cold, really cold. Bit I was feeling well.

After lunch they brought me to visit the house where my dad grew up: a hole in a clayish wall of the mountain. After seeing this place I respected even more this kind man that is hosting me since last September. Today he’s a rich man who can afford big cars, houses, fireworks and fine dinners. But when he started he had nothing.

And then we met grandpa, grandma and Mao Zedong

We then drive to Yuci, where I met my grandparents. Even if they knew that I wasn’t… well… Chinese, they couldn’t refrain from making some comments about the color of my skin and hair.

In the living room there was a white statue of Mao Zedong, almost as tall as me. My grandpa exploited one of the few moments in which I was alone with him to interrogate me in the only language he can speak: the dialect of Shanxi (山西, a Chinese province).
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